No sidebars about billionaires buying elections

My Sunday viewing was the Tony Awards, celebrating the best on Broadway. It looks like a lot of great shows appeared over the last year – and I saw shows on Broadway last summer before the season began. My goodness, the Tony Awards show was so gay! Close to the top was a song from Death Becomes Her. I was sure the words were “Everything I do is for the gays.” While I was glad they wanted to do something for all of us (and it was quite the spectacular number), I wondered if I heard it right. So I found the list of songs for the show. The lyric is actually, “Everything I do is for the gaze,” in which the woman sings about the length she will go to attract attention. The similarity between “gays” and “gaze” is, I’m told, totally intentional. The show Operation Mincemeat was introduced by one of the actors, who assures us that he is male and is playing a female character. I think it was Jak Malone, who won for best actor in a featured role. Cole Escola plays Mary Todd Lincoln in Oh, Mary! and the outfit he wore for the Tonys was a gown revealing much of his chest – and ample chest hair. He won for best actor in a leading role in a play. A photo of that gown and chest hair is here. The playwright of Purpose, which won best play, thanked his husband, as did a few other winners. The show Maybe Happy Ending is a look at a different kind of love, that between two robots. It won best actor in a leading role in a musical for Darrin Criss, best direction of a musical, best book of a musical, best score for a musical, and best scenic design for a musical. I’ll put that one on my list of shows to see. One of the shows nominated for best revival of a play was Romeo + Juliet. It’s worth a mention because Romeo is played by Kit Connor. He played Nick, one of the gay lovers in Heartstoppers. This version of R+J looks like the Montagues are white and the Capulets are not. My friend and debate partner might be interested that one of the shows nominated for best revival of a musical was Pirates! The Penzance Musical. It strays somewhat from the Gilbert and Sullivan original – it is set in New Orleans and the song I saw featured washboards – so I don’t know if my friend is a purist and would avoid it or might enjoy a new interpretation. I know the big news this past weekend is about Los Angeles and I’ve accumulated a lot of browser tabs about the story. Alas, I don’t have time for the whole story this evening. Kilmar Abrego Garcia is the guy mistakenly included in a raid and deported to El Salvador. The nasty guy and his minions admitted the error, but refused to return him. Walter Einenkel of Daily Kos reported that Abrego Garcia is back in the US, where he went straight to a detention facility. Attorney General Pam Bondi has charged him with a human trafficking horror story based on “recently found facts.” Einenkel describes the charges as “bogus.” At least Abrego Garcia will be able to defend himself in court. Though I won’t get to the weekend news, the big news last week, before the LA story took over, was the breakup between the nasty guy and Elon Musk. There was a genial moment when Musk was given a sendoff as he officially left his government role to return to private business. Emily Singer of Kos reported that the relationship began to sour when Musk called the Big Brutal Bill an “abomination” for not cutting government spending enough – or maybe because it will cut the EV mandate, which Musk’s Tesla company benefits from. The nasty guy responded. Musk declared that without him the nasty guy would have lost the election and Democrats would have controlled both chambers of Congress. Lovely when two huge egos get into a catfight. Alex Samuels of Kos said that Tesla got caught in the crossfire. It’s shares dropped 14% after the spat. Then the nasty guy threatened to end all of Musk’s government contracts and subsidies. And Musk responded by saying he would fund a primary challenger for every Republican who voted for the Big Brutal Bill. Musk had one more shot, that the nasty guy is named in the Epstein files and that’s the real reason why they haven’t been made public. The Epstein files are about the sex trafficking that Jeffrey Epstein offered to rich people. There are a lot of photos of the nasty guy and Epstein together, even some with the two and scantily dressed women I don’t know of evidence that the nasty guy was a customer. Musk is implying there is evidence. In the comments of a pundit roundup on Kos exlrrp posted a meme that says, “So elon musk has known about trump and the epstein files but was fine to keep it a secret as long as he got his way? He is no good guy. Not by a long shot.” Lisa Needham of Kos wrote about all the ways the nasty guy and Musk could damage each other. Musk installed loyalists through the government. The nasty guy could fire them. The nasty guy can cancel all Musk’s government contracts, worth many billions, and prevent new ones from going to Musk. The nasty guy could reinstate all the government investigations into Musk’s businesses. The spat has many Republicans in a tizzy. Do they declare their loyalty to the nasty guy and lose their campaign funding from Musk or have his vast cash used against them? Or do they align with Musk and face the nasty guy’s great wrath? I love such dilemmas. In a pundit roundup for Kos Greg Dworkin quoted a tweet from Brian Stelter:

As every political junkie in America watched the Donald Trump-Elon Musk alliance shatter into a million X-shaped pieces, consider what was assumed and baked into the news coverage and commentary.

Stelter then quoted a document (not identified). Here’s part of the quote:

>> Reporters and analysts openly talked about all the ways that Trump might now turn the levers of government to punish Musk, without much talk of the legal or ethical implications. >> Talking heads also speculated that Musk might tweak the X algorithm to push anti-Trump messages into users’ feeds, again sidestepping all the implications. >> No one seemed overly surprised that the richest man in the world spent hundreds of millions of dollars to sway an election and now has buyers’ remorse. There were hardly any sidebar stories about the consequences of billionaires buying elections.

Down in the comments are many cartoons about the spat.

Guns kill people. But so do judges who serve the NRA.

My Sunday viewing was the Tony Awards, honoring plays and musicals new to Broadway in the last year. I usually watch it, though this year I have more interest because I’ll be in New York next month. Alas, some of those shows have already closed. I suppose I knew the show Illinoise included a gay couple. That it does was made quite obvious when an excerpt was shown and two men danced and kissed. I had to read more about the show and, yes, this show of all dance and no dialogue does include gay characters. Alas, in my limited time I won’t be able to see it. I did know about the show Stereophonic and I am quite interested in it. The topic is a band in the studio making an album. It won best play (and not musical?). If five people in the cast are nominated for best featured performer (three men, two women, one of the men won) are there any lead performers? As I saw that win I realized I may have delayed too long in buying a ticket. And today, seat selection was slim, but successfully purchased. The other show I want to see is Hamilton. Yeah, I haven’t seen it yet. I almost bought a ticket today. Then I saw the fine print saying my ticket will be on my phone. What does the theater do about people without smart phones? In a pundit roundup for Daily Kos Chitown Kev quoted Raja Abdulrahim of the New York Times writing about Gazans speaking out against Hamas, some of whom would only speak once safely out of Gaza.

Some of the Gazans who spoke to The New York Times said that Hamas knew it would be starting a devastating war with Israel that would cause heavy civilian casualties, but that it did not provide any food, water or shelter to help people survive it. Hamas leaders have said they wanted to ignite a permanent state of war with Israel on all fronts as a way to revive the Palestinian cause and knew that the Israeli response would be big.

They knew there would be heavy casualties and destruction, yet didn’t provide food, water, or shelter. That confirms the statement I’ve heard that a big reason Hamas provoked the war was to turn world opinion against Israel. That seems to be working quite well. Hamas is interested only in power and has zero interest in its citizens. The quote matches what my friend and debate partner said a few weeks ago. My friend said that Hamas has as its primary goal to eliminate Israel. In contrast, Israel does not have a goal to eliminate Palestine. However, over the last few weeks I’ve wondered if Netanyahu or his war cabinet (I heard it was disbanded today) or his far right coalition partners have that goal of elimination. I’ve heard accusations (alas, I didn’t save links) that Netanyahu is prolonging the war to keep his far-right governing coalition together to keep him in power and through that avoiding the consequences of a corruption scandal. I’m also troubled by the desperate need by Gazans for food and shelter that is tied up at the border. Mark Sumner of Kos has been posting Ukraine updates only occasionally. The one for this past weekend has good news. Ukraine has been very good at destroying Russian assets in Crimea. The US permission to use our missiles to attack assets in Russian territory has helped that effort.

Crimea has already become too dangerous for Russian ships. Now it may also be too dangerous for Russian planes. And soon, it could be too dangerous for Russians altogether.

Remember when the dam on the Dnipro River was sabotaged, draining a big lake? That lake supplied water to Crimea. It’s looking quite dry in satellite photos. I’ve accumulated several articles on the Supreme Court, or as I’ve heard called recently, the Extreme Court. Last week Sumner reported on Lauren Windsor’s visit to the Supreme Court Historical Society where she presented herself as a conservative Catholic and secretly recorded conversations with Justice Alito, his wife Martha-Ann, and Chief Justice Roberts. Alito’s words got a lot of attention. In the recording Alito came across as a person willing and ready to impose his Christian beliefs on the rest of the country. He said that on some things compromise is not possible and he doesn’t believe the two sides can “live together peacefully.” Alito did not mention law or the Constitution. Roberts came off a bit better. He doubted we live in a Christian nation and it isn’t his (or the Court’s) job to turn the US into one. This is a much better response than Alito gave, but still isn’t a good answer. He didn’t outright declare the US isn’t Christian nation. He only expressed doubt that it is. And through previous rulings he has clearly shown he isn’t a moderate. Aldous Pennyfarthing of Kos wrote that Fox News has finally said something about Supreme Court corruption. But Clarence Thomas and Alito weren’t mentioned. Instead Fox called out Ketanji Brown Jackson. Yes, Jackson accepted four Beyoncé tickets, valued at $3,700. She also reported the gift immediately. There is also the gifts of artwork for her chambers valued at $12,500. And don’t forget the $900K advance on her book to come out in September. Previously there was $6,500 in clothes from a photo shoot and $1,200 flower display from Oprah Winfrey (also properly disclosed). Also yes, Thomas has accepted trips and gifts at least a hundred times more valuable than that and discloses those gifts only when they’re reported publicly. Beyoncé and Winfrey are not likely to have cases before the Court. Harlan Crow, the money man behind the trips Thomas took, has already had cases before the Court. Yeah, Fox News is being Fox News.

Why are Democrats forced to ace every test, lest the public think they’re civilization-destroying chaos agents, while Republicans can be literal felons—who face dozens more felony charges—and still be treated as “normal” candidates?

Also last week Joan McCarter of Kos wrote that “Senate Judiciary Committee Chair Dick Durbin is failing at his job of holding the Supreme Court accountable.” About all he can manage is stern letters Alito ignores. Stepping into the void is Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse and Reps Jamie Raskin and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. They are saying a lot about how corrupt the court is and prodding Durban into accomplishing a little bit. Walter Einenkel of Kos reported that the little bit is a bill to require the Court to adopt a set of ethics rules with enforcement. Republicans blocked an attempt to pass the bill through unanimous consent. Majority Leader Schumer is still considering whether to have a regular vote on the bill (but why isn’t the choice obvious?). There’s about two weeks left in the Court’s term (though sometimes they go long) and about a dozen cases still without a ruling. McCarter reported on one case that got a ruling. In a unanimous decision the Court preserved access to abortion pill mifepristone. It was unanimous not because the justices agree on whether it should be banned, but because the people who brought the suit didn’t have standing to do so – they couldn’t prove they would be harmed by the ruling. The oral arguments were a preview of this outcome. Also in the oral arguments Thomas and Alito repeatedly said which argument would be a better attack on medicated abortion that can be won. Plaintiffs could use the 1837 Comstock Act, which banned “indecent” materials, as well as abortion and contraception drugs, from being sent through the mail. So consider this reprieve to be temporary. McCarter also discussed the Court ruling from late last week in which the majority reversed a ban on bump stocks. This is a device that allows a semi-automatic gun to act like a machine gun. Bump stocks were banned after the Las Vegas shooting in 2017 that killed 58 people and injured more than 800. The ruling was written by Thomas. He essentially redefined what Congress meant when it defined machine guns. So much for the “textualist” principle justices have been using as the right way to interpret laws. Justice Sotomayor, in the dissent, called BS. She said the Court should respect the ordinary understanding of words Congress uses. She then provided quotes from all six of the conservatives on their claim of the importance of textualism. McCarter’s conclusion:

“The majority’s reading flies in the face of this Court’s standard tools of statutory interpretation,” [Sotomayor] wrote. “Today, the majority forgets that principle and substitutes its own view of what constitutes a ‘machine gun’ for Congress’.” In doing so, the court just carved out a bump stock loophole from the plain text that will worsen the next mass shootings.

In a pundit roundup for Kos Greg Dworkin had a few appropriate quotes. From EJ Dionne of the Washington Post:

Conservatives on the U.S. Supreme Court have decided that more Americans must die in mass shootings because they have a quibble over the word “function.” In striking down the 2018 Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) regulation banning bump stocks, which effectively turn semiautomatic rifles into machine guns, the court’s six conservative justices not only put their ideological preconceptions ahead of rational policymaking. They also privileged an arrogant, misplaced confidence in their own technical expertise over a federal agency’s thoughtful effort to prevent the grotesque slaughter of innocents.

Dworkin included a tweet from David Rothkopf:

We need to be very clear, the right wing on the Supreme Court with their perverse misinterpretation of the 2d Amendment are directly responsible for many of the nearly 50,000 gun deaths that occur in the US each year. Guns kill people. But so do judges who serve the NRA.

From David Firestone of the New York Times:

Skilled shooters using an AR-15-style semiautomatic rifle can fire 180 rounds per minute, she wrote, but a bump stock allows them to fire 400 to 800 rounds per minute, which is the ordinary understanding of a fully automatic machine gun. “Today’s decision to reject that ordinary understanding will have deadly consequences,” Sotomayor wrote. “The majority’s artificially narrow definition hamstrings the government’s efforts to keep machine guns from gunmen like the Las Vegas shooter.” And when the next Las Vegas happens, it will not be enough to blame it on the madness of a single deranged individual. There are so many others.

In the comments are appropriate cartoons. Thanos Kalamidas drew one that asks, “Is SCOTUS arming rednecks and MAGAs for a civil war?” There are two cartoons by Dennis Goris. In one two schoolchildren are walking and one says, “I hope when we get our school shooter, he doesn’t use a bump stock.” In the other three children are at the gate of Heaven and St. Peter says, “They just loved their bump stocks more, that’s all.”

It was supposed to defang the Freedom Caucus

When writing about the Tony Awards yesterday I missed a couple things. One of the award recipients said, “When your child tells you who they are, believe them.” And one of the short videos introducing a show or an actor featured a black woman saying something like this: I’ve just been to the doctor and tested negative for patience. Walter Einenkel of Daily Kos reported that the restaurant chain Cracker Barrel is being targeted by the MAGA crowd for a boycott. Yeah, the same Cracker barrel that was sued for discriminatory practices nearly 20 years ago and sold Duck Dynasty merch 10 years ago. Their travesty? A photo of the rocking chairs on a restaurant’s porch painted in rainbow colors. So the MAGA crowd will have to eat elsewhere. One tiny problem. Of the top ten fast food chains – McDonald’s, Taco Bell, Subway, Chipotle Mexican Grill, Chick-Fil-A, Pizza Hut, Panera, Wendy’s, and Burger King – all of them have some sort of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion statement. Wrote Einenkel:

The good news for bigots is that fast food is generally unhealthy and shouldn’t be eaten too frequently. The bad news is that if you plan on holding another insurrection or driving cross-country to support your suspected criminal former president, there are going to be a lot of places you cannot eat. Like, most of them. Better start looking at the 7-Eleven menu. Oh no!!!!!

They have a DEI statement too! I thought the debt limit bill was supposed to defang the far right House Freedom Caucus. I’m not surprised it didn’t. Wednesday last week Joan McCarter of Kos wrote that the HFC rebelled by defeating a “rule” vote, a procedural vote that lays out the terms of debate on a bill. And it’s a silly bill – one that would prevent the Biden administration from adding further regulations to gas stoves. The last time a rule vote failed was 21 years ago. Yeah, this is their payback for feeling betrayed by that debit limit bill McCarthy negotiated with Biden, the one that got more Democratic votes than Republican. Well, fine, if the Republican controlled House doesn’t want to do anything, the less trouble they can get into. Except there are some thing that must pass. Like the 2024 budget. And the Farm Bill that comes up every five years. And Ukraine will likely need more aid. In one attempt to appease them McCarthy said he’ll next turn to tax cuts – and we can be sure they won’t be tax custs for those who aren’t rich. It’s rather strange that the HFC can’t tell a consistent story why they voted no. Various members say different things. I won’t bother sorting through their blather. On Thursday McCarter reported the rebels held firm and on Wednesday night McCarthy adjourned the House until Monday. The rebels are saying McCarthy had promised them certain things. Steve Scalise, the Republican Majority Leader says he knows nothing about those promises. Feuding within the party ensued. Yesterday afternoon – the Monday the House was to return to business – McCarter posted again. The House will try to proceed with business that doesn’t need rule votes. Then McCarter explained what may be ahead. If those budget bills don’t get passed – and with 32 legislative days before they’re due on October 1 passage is higly unlikely – on January 1 there will be cuts to everything – including defense and veterans care, the areas Republicans most want to protect. And we could be back to where we were a month ago with the debt limit bill. McCarter reported on a couple rulings out of the Supreme Court. In the first, the Court told Alabama they had to redraw Congressional district maps to add a second black majority district. Chief Justice John Roberts and Justice Brett Kavanaigh joined the liberals. That means they didn’t gut the last bit of the Voting Rights Act that Roberts has been shredding bit by bit since he got on the Court. The second case preserves the right of Medicaid beneficiaries to sue in federal court when they believe their rights are violated by state officials. This one was decided, amazingly, 7-2. It may be more consequential than the first. Can it be that the high level or criticism aimed at Roberts over the last few years is causing him to show restraint? Is he starting to worry about his legacy? Good to know the pressure campaign is working. We still need to reform the Court. Michael Harriot tweeted a thread about the top ten imaginary black people. Here are some of them. 10. Many white people say they have a black best friend. Why don’t black people say they have a white bestie? Perhaps all these white people have the same black friend, and it’s Clarence Thomas? 7. Blacks are accused of not caring about education. Could be because they’ve been denied equal education? 4. If blacks are the real racists where are all the black on white massacres or lynchings? 2. Police justify being brutal to prevent blacks from attacking them. But more cops are killed by whites than by blacks. 1. The charge is black people are so dumb. But Harriot wonders how white people know what is better for black people than 80% of black people. Biden tweeted a photo of a pride flag hanging from the south side of the White House. David Hayward tweeted a cartoon of Jesus and a rainbow sheep dancing, but are the only ones on the dance floor. Hayward added “Life is so much more fun when we let everyone on the dance floor.”

It's not our business to be telling actors who they are

My Sunday viewing wasn’t a movie, instead I watched the Tony Awards, a celebration of the best of Broadway. This year was a bit different. The Tony organization negotiated a deal with the Writers Guild of America, currently on strike which shut down many TV and movie productions. The deal was the ceremony would not use a script and the WGA would not picket. That was better than canceling the ceremony. The WGA felt the stage actors needed to be honored. So instead of an opening monologue or song there was an opening dance, and a pretty cool dance taking advantage of their new location in the gilded United Palace in Washington Heights. It also meant presenters were not announced. Their names appeared on the screen above the stage and when they got to the microphone they introduced themselves. Instead of telling a joke (Nathan Lane was one of a few exceptions) they got down to the business of announcing the award, listing the nominees (usually with a short scene on the screen), and naming the recipient. That meant the show ended on time. There was only one place where I thought this didn’t work. There were lifetime achievement awards for John Kander and Joel Grey. While the screen showed scenes from their work there were two dancers on stage. While nicely done, there was no mention of why these two deserved lifetime achievement awards. A bit reason to watch is to get a sense of shows I might want to see if they ever came to Detroit. And a few do. The idea of & Juliet does sound intriguing – what if Juliet doesn’t kill herself when she sees the body of Romeo? But the scene played during the ceremony was so into spectacle that it was a turnoff. A couple that do look intriguing: There’s Kimberly Akimbo, the story of a girl with an aging syndrome so that by the time she reaches 16 she looks 70. The actress, Victoria Clark, who won for Best Leading Actress in a Musical and said she’s definitely older than 65, looked like she was having a lot of fun playing a high school girl encountering first love. The other is Leopoldstadt a new Tom Stoppard play about a big Jewish family in Vienna from about 1899 to 1938. Here’s an article about the opening last October that talks about why Stoppard wrote the play. Brandon Uranowitz, who won for Best Featured Actor for Leopoldstadt, talked about how the show resonates today.

We are seeing a lot of those tiny seemingly little inconsequential things [that happen in the play] happening right now. It's a clarion call to pay attention to those seemingly inconsequential things that accumulate and lead to mass devastation.

A big thing going on during this Tony Award show was the celebration of identity. Towards the beginning of the show Michael Arden won Best Director for Parade. During a part of his acceptance speech the sound cut out and when it came back the audience was cheering wildly. Today I learned it was to cut out foul language. When he was growing up he had been called a slur for gay men and now he’s a “[slur] with a Tony.” Later Alex Newell won for Best Featured Actor in a Musical for their role in Shucked (a musical about corn? Who knew?). Yes, Newell is nonbinary and was in a sparkling gold dress as they accepted the award and thanked the show producers and the Tony organization for considering nonbinary actors. Newell is the first nonbinary actor to win a Tony. Shortly after that J. Harrison Ghee won for Best Leading Actor for their role in Some Like It Hot. Ghee is also nonbinary. When that show did one of its numbers for the ceremony I wondered about Ghee. I noticed this tall person in a dress and wondered: Male or female? Perhaps neither or both. Some Like It Hot is a musical version of the 1959 movie starring Jack Lemmon and Tony Curtis who escape the mob by dressing as women and joining an all female jazz band. I’ve heard trans people say this concept is outdated. But the new musical has a different ending – living as a woman actually feels pretty good. In that case a nonbinary actor would be quite appropriate. Both Newell and Ghee presented as female with lovely gowns. I wondered how they ended up in the male Best Actor categories. That got me to an NPR article by Jeff Lunden about where nonbinary actors fit. Newell said that although the role they play is female, the word “actor” is not gendered and that is their profession. As for Ghee the character is first male, then female. The award category was less of a concern. I found there is a third player in this story – Justin David Sullivan, who is nonbinary and plays May in & Juliet. Sullivan declined to be considered for a Tony because that would have required them to choose a gender, and they felt they couldn’t do it. Lunden reported several theater awards have chosen to have nongendered performance awards. They include Washington's Helen Hayes Awards, Chicago's Jeff Awards, and New York's Drama Desk

David Barbour, co-president of the Drama Desk Awards, said for years they had nongendered performance categories, until they realized more men than women were taking home honors. At that point, they switched to gendered categories — but this year, they switched back. "It really became evident to us that there were a number of performances by nonbinary performers who were very likely going to be in the mix when the nominations came out," said Barbour. "And it's not our business to be telling actors who they are. We're not in the business of defining them."

Kids deserve to be annoying without being arrested

About six weeks ago I saw the Apollo space exhibit at the Henry Ford Museum of Innovation. While there I bought the book Apollo 11, The Inside Story by David Whitehouse. I’ve now finished it. I don’t think this book has an accurate title. Yeah, it had a lot of inside stuff about the first time humans actually stepped onto the moon. But it was much more than that. It actually begins with Konstantin Tsiolkovsky, a Russian who first worked out some of the principles of space flight before the Russian Revolution and the First World War. These principles are such things as recognizing the need for an airlock and creating a formula for how a rocket speeds up as the fuel is used up and its weight goes down. Which means the book covers the entire history of rocketry from Tsiolkovsky to the end of the Apollo program. It includes the German development of the V2, how we got some of those Germans into America, and the entire space race. For a good part of the book, covering more than 20 years, the book interleaves the two sides. The Americans did this as the Soviets doing that. For a good deal of that time the Soviets were in the lead – first animal in space, first human, first orbit, among others. But once President Kennedy committed us to the goal of a man on the moon by the end of the decade the American goal was quite methodical – this has to be done, then this, then that. There was a definite purpose, goal, and method. But the Soviet response was gosh, look at what the Americans just did! What can we quickly do in response for propaganda purposes? That didn’t work so well. So the book covers Sputnik, all the Redstone failures, the Soviet successes in the early 1960s followed by a string of failures, the Mercury program, the very good Gemini program, and the Soviet attempts to match each while failing as much as they succeeded. Of course, the Apollo 1 fire in 1967 was covered. It seems there was a great deal of emphasis placed on schedule and that first Apollo capsule just wasn’t ready. Perhaps more accurately it was a piece of junk. I hadn’t known that while Aldrin and Armstrong were on the moon the Soviets were trying to match them with a mission to send a robot to the moon, dig up some soil, and return it to earth. It crashed into a mountain. The inside story part of the title is accurate. Over the years the author had interviewed many of the American astronauts, so we get their accounts. He had also interviewed a few of the Soviets. So when someone suggested this might be his next book he realized he already had a great deal of material. I enjoyed this book and it’s a great one for a space geek. I watched the Tony Awards last night. There was a lot of great LGBTQ representation and a lot of diversity. The host was Ariana DeBose, who had won an Oscar for West Side Story and is a lesbian. She did a great job. The play Take Me Out is about a baseball player that comes out as gay. Three guys in the cast were nominated for Best Featured Actor in a Play and Jesse Tyler Ferguson won. The show won Best Revival of a Play (it was first produced in 2002 and won a Tony for Best Play in 2003). The musical A Strange Loop is about Usher, who is a black queer movie theater usher and writer writing about a black queer movie theater usher. Behind Usher are six Thoughts that annoy him with self doubt. It was nominated for Michael R. Jackson’s Best Original Score and won for his Best Book of a Musical. The show also won Best Musical. There were, of course, other LGBT people among the winners – at least one guy, on winning, kissed his husband. Back when I was in high school the choral and theater teachers directed the musical The Music Man. I had the role of the train conductor, so had the opening line, then played one of the townspeople. So it is a favorite. I also saw the original movie with my family when it came out (yeah, I’m that old) and a later remake. I like the original and Robert Preston was a good scoundrel. I didn’t like the 2003 TV remake because Matthew Broderick was too nice to be a scoundrel. There is a revival on Broadway starring Hugh Jackman and Sutton Foster. And yeah, he could be enough of a scoundrel to make it work. Though the box office and Tony organization loved the show critics weren’t kind. In a Ukraine update Mark Sumner of Daily Kos included tweets of pictures of high school kids in Chernihiv. A photo posted by Visegrád 24 shows students posing in their bombed school building. A tweet by Mikhail Khordorkovsky shows students posing on a wrecked tank. Beyond those pictures Sumner has little that’s new. In a separate post Jaaneezutto of the Kos community posted what is becoming an iconic image of this year. Sixteen year old Valerie wore the beautiful bright red gown she was to wear to her high school prom and posed in the ruins of her school. Dartagnan of the Kos community wrote that Putin is expecting to hold on in Ukraine long enough for public opinion to change. He’ll likely get help from American Republicans or maybe even the return of the nasty guy. Europe has responded wonderfully to Putin’s invasion. Politics in Germany (increased military spending), Sweden, and Finland (rushing to join NATO) changed dramatically in a short time. Europe sees the brutality of Russian soldiers and are quite willing to help in the biggest refugee crisis since WWII. They also see who is next if Putin absorbs Ukraine. They’re also motivated by their memories of what the nasty guy did to NATO while in the Oval Office. So of course there is fear this issue needs to be dealt with as fast as possible in case he should return to Washington. The ways that some of the Republicans are acting Putin may not have to wait that long. But there is the public opinion to worry about. That could quickly change due to global inflation, high energy costs, and possible food shortages. There is also simple exhaustion. Changing public opinion could prompt a falter in standing up to Putin. Putin has ranted that he will start tearing up treaties between Russia and the West. Matas Maldeikis, a member of Lithuania’s Parliament, tweeted:

If Russia revokes her 1991 recognition of Lithuania's independence, Lithuania will revoke the 1634 Treaty of Polyanovka and demand that Putin submits to the authority of Władysław IV and returns all occupied territories to the Grand Duchy. Smolensk is Lithuania!

Visegrád 24 tweeted:

In response to the plans of the Russian Parliament to revoke Russia’s recognition of Lithuania’s Declaration of Independence from the USSR in 1991, the Kyiv City Council has cancelled the decree by Kyiv Rus Grand Prince Volodymyr of the founding of Moscow in 1147. Moscow is gone

Kyiv was founded in 996. Kos of Kos again wrote about the tankies:

Tankies believe that all the world’s evils are the product of imperialism and the only country capable of imperialism is the United States. ... they never escaped the idea that “America is bad,” even when Russia is the actual aggressor today. Yes, it’s true—our country can sometimes do the right thing!

I’ll let you read the rest, though I’ll note there is now a tankie bingo card. Greg Dworkin, in a pundit roundup for Kos, quoted Andrew Exum of The Atlantic saying putting armed veterans in schools is madness.

The only veterans who have the time to do this, then, are those veterans who are mentally or physically disabled from their service, or veterans who have otherwise failed to transition back to “civilian life” and find gainful employment. Many, I would respectfully argue, are the very last people you want walking around schools with firearms.

Bill in Portland, Maine, in his Cheers and Jeers column for Kos, quoted late night commentary:

Clip of cultist Rep. Steve Scalise at press conference on gun violence: We had AR-15s in the 1960s. We didn't have those mass school shootings. Samantha Bee: Okay, then. Let's go back to the 1960s when AR-15s were only available to the military. Amen! —Full Frontal When we throw more cops into schools as an easy way out of that difficult and necessary conversation [on gun control], we not only fail to keep our kids safe from gun violence, we condemn them to a system that criminalizes the very essence of childhood. Kids deserve to be annoying without being arrested, to be sad and angry without being body slammed. They deserve to have tantrums, throw carrots, do science experiments, talk shit, and carve their names into stuff without risking being thrown in the back of a police car. —John Oliver, on the epidemic of terrorism against elementary school students by police overstepping their sole job duty—to stop bad guys with guns

Ian Reifowitz of the Kos community discussed Biden’s proposed wealth tax. Someone having a billion dollars while fellow Americans have to do without basics is a moral and economic problem. Minimizing that inequality means more Americans would not live in hardship. Inequality stunts overall growth. Capitalism causes wealth to trickle up (that trickle down stuff is a myth) and the Republican tax policies since the 1980s have increased the flow. To reverse that trend and to pay for vital priorities it is time for the wealth tax Biden has proposed. An in-depth article by the New York Times is based on research by Matthew Lacombe, Benjamin Page, and Jason Seawright, political scientists of Northwest University. They looked at the 100 wealthiest billionaires in the US. They found the wealthy say almost nothing about policy positions. There’s a good reason – their opinions are quite different from the positions held by most Americans. So the way to see their influence is to look at the voting records of those who receive that money. One of the points of the research Reifowitz explains through a quote of Berkeley Law School professor Ian Haney López:

Racism is the primary weapon wielded by the power elite in a class war they are winning. This describes what’s been happening in society since colonialism, but over the last half-century in particular.

A logical question is whether those power elites are themselves racist or are just using racism because it will prompt the lower classes to dance to their tune. I believe they are themselves racist. They’re certainly supremacist in that are sucking money out of the lower classes, which is oppressive to lower class people. Reifowitz reported that billionaires give a half million per person per year to political causes. Their methods of giving are quite stealthy. No wonder political elites do their bidding – and I’m not singling out Republicans because I believe many elite Democrats are willing to dance the tune to get the money dangled in front of them. Reifowitz explained how the rich avoid paying much in taxes. He included a chart that shows the tax rate for the richest has declined since 1950 – with big assists from Reagan, Clinton (the capital gains tax cut), Bush II, and the nasty guy. Their effective tax rate is now below that of to bottom 90% and the bottom 50%. Biden is proposing a billionaire minimum income tax. It calls for them to pay at least 20% of their full income – including investments they haven’t sold yet. This can be sold to the American public as a way to “make sure that the wealthiest Americans no longer pay a tax rate lower than teachers and firefighters.” The Wall Street Journal attacked Biden’s plan saying it won’t make all that much difference in the federal budget, even though it would have funded the original version of the Build Back Better plan. The WSJ also says dividing up the assets of the wealthy would amount to only $14,000 per person. That conveniently ignores that is more wealth than a quarter of US households and the money doesn’t need to be divided equally. The paper also ignores that during the pandemic (which has killed over 1 million) the wealth at the top has increased by 57% or $1.7 trillion (almost enough to pay off the nation’s entire student loan debt). I doubt the WSJ mentioned one more thing taxing the rich could accomplish and Reifowitz didn’t mention it. Taxing the rich could reduce their hold on American government. Alas, it would take a lot higher tax rates to make that happen. Alas, they want that hold on American government and will fight to preserve that hold. Reifowitz also discussed that raising taxes on the richest is a much better and more fair way to reduce inflation than raising interest rates, which harms the poorest the most. The Republican Party ...

makes a lot of noise giving their target audience of mostly white, working- and middle-class people a bulls--- enemy, a scapegoat for some overhyped or just plain made up problems. Right-wing candidates, office-holders, and media figures bleat on about the cultural elite who supposedly want to destroy traditional, Christian values on LGBTQ matters, and the liberal elite who supposedly want to oppress white Christian Americans in every way possible. Democrats need to push back hard against those culture war attacks, and also get voters to see the underlying bait-and-switch Republicans are pulling by making them in the first place.

David Rothkopf tweeted about the complicity of big donors to the mainstreaming of racism and corruption.

There are only two groups that can change the GOP--voters and donors. Party leaders--Cheney aside--aren't doing it. When voters turn Trumpist extremism into a loser is when other voices will begin to resonate. But don't underestimate the role of donors. One reason for this is that the real politics of the GOP donor class is that if they get lower taxes and less regulation than they will accept anything else that goes along with it. But another is that consumers have not made them pay a price for their betrayal of the country. The same holds true for shareholders--particularly large institutions. If big institutional investors said, "Sorry, we draw the line at companies that support coups or racism or misogyny or violating basic rights or corruption or hobnobbing with enemies" then change would happen.

There is another possibility not mentioned in that middle paragraph – these big donors want more than the lower taxes and less regulation (though that is clearly part of it). That possibility is they also want the racism, the overturning of democracy, and the oppression of everyone who isn’t them. As for the voters changing the GOP, Dartagnan of the Kos community listed several issues where Republican voters align with progressives. One example is that “three-quarters of Republicans favor government action to ‘reduce greenhouse gas emissions.’ ”

The list goes on, but I won’t bore you. Because the reality at this point in history (and likely for the foreseeable future) is that what Republican voters may believe or think is completely irrelevant to the political discussion from our standpoint. What matters is how they vote, and for the most part, they vote on one issue, and one issue only: their hatred of Democrats.

So forget the talk of unity and bipartisanship. And ignore those who say Democrats have a messaging problem. The people we would want to reach only listening to Fox News.

And that tells them that voting for Democrats is akin to voting for the Devil incarnate, no matter what the issue is.

Dartagnan quoted Josh Marshall of Talking Points Memo:

When you find the other side politically unacceptable, you’ll go along with anything that your side is associated with. You can add abortion and Covid to guns and coups. There are yawning differences between what Republicans in the electorate say they believe on all these matters of grave import and what the Republicans who represent them do. Yet Republicans almost never punish their leaders for these difference of opinion. ... In short, political accountability is dead among those on the political right in America. It doesn’t matter if most disagree with the party on assault weapons and background checks. It doesn’t matter that 70% of Republicans supported mask mandates in 2020 while their leaders scoffed at them. It doesn’t matter that many Republicans have no interest in seeing Roe overturned. The power of polarization will have them out in force in the fall providing lockstep support to their congressional candidates.

Seasons of love

I watched the Tony Awards Sunday evening. It was very gay friendly, starting from the first award given to Andrew Garfield from Angels in America (a very gay play). Garfield’s acceptance speech was wonderful. And it was good to see Nathan Lane get an award for what looks like serious (rather than comic) acting. Wish I could see the performance.

Several other winners took their time on stage to say something pointed about inclusion and diversity. And one winner even asked the audience to sing Happy Birthday to his boyfriend!

I watch the Tony Awards to see what interesting plays are out there in hopes they will come to Detroit soon. The Band’s Visit looks really interesting. Once on This Island looks like fun. Some have intriguing titles, though no details were offered – Meteor Shower, Farinelli and the King, and Latin History for Morons.

There was a highlight to the ceremony the brought me to tears. Melody Herzfeld is a drama teacher at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School, the site of the Valentine’s Day massacre earlier this year. She sheltered students during the lockdown, then helped them deal with the aftermath using theater. She helped turn hurt into art. Those watching from home didn’t see her acceptance speech, though we were introduced to her after a commercial break.

Matthew Morrison took up the story from the stage. A couple months ago he had gone to Parkland and performed with some of Herzfeld’s students for a benefit concert. One of the students, Tanzil Philip, contacted the Tonys and asked to appear to say thank you. The Tonys flipped it around and invited 16 students to perform during the awards. They sang “Seasons of Love” from the musical Rent. Follow the link to see their performance.

Wonderful!

Empty, mocking gesture

I wrote yesterday that the Orlando attack was the deadliest in US history. I've seen that statement several times today, though I've wondered if it all comes from one source, perhaps this LA Times article that details the attack.

A friend responded to yesterday's post saying that statement ignores such things as the Baker-Fancher massacre of 1857 and Wounded Knee of 1890 (at least 150 dead). There were likely many others. Perhaps some qualifiers are needed (though not mentioned in news sources) such as deadliest by a single attacker.

The conservative response to the attack has, as expected, been disgusting. Even some of the mild stuff can be annoying, such as carefully not saying the site was an LGBT club even when they say such platitudes as the attack was against "all of us." That way they can distance themselves from their own policies that promote bigotry. They can also justify their favorite narrative that the whole thing is attributable to extreme Islam (even though various people say the attacker wasn't particularly religious and had said nasty things about us).

The Editorial Board of the Detroit Free Press pushed back on that nastiness:

In the days to come, we'll learn much, much more about the tragedy in Orlando. But at its core, this attack is the product of two things: easy civilian access to weapons that kill dozens in minutes, and the persistence of political rhetoric that marginalizes LGBT people.

After mass shootings it is now customary for Congress to hold a moment of silence. It seems that's all they can manage to do. But Rep. Jim Hines (D-CT) has had enough of that empty, mocking gesture. He will refuse to attend.

Hillary has our back. Bernie? Unknown. Donald? Forget it. He's too busy blaming Muslims.

The FDA has long had a ban on accepting donations of blood from men who have sex with men, a stupid rule left over from the AIDS epidemic (even though there are ways to screen for AIDS). However, for the duration of this emergency blood will be accepted from everyone.

The Go Fund Me page set up by Equality Florida to help victims and families has passed $2.6 million. They hope to get to $5 million. The page set up by The Center, an LGBT center in Orlando, has passed $274 thousand with a goal of $500 thousand.

My pastor called me this morning, asking how I was doing in response to the Orlando news. He then said he is going to a vigil at the Affirmations LGBT center in Ferndale tomorrow evening. He asked if I would like to ride with him. Wow! This guy is wonderful! I'll miss him (his last Sunday with us before going to another assignment is this coming weekend). Other vigils are listed at the We Are Orlando site.

There have been national and international vigils and signs of support, such as a crowd on Bourbon Street, New Orleans. Bridges lit with rainbow lights in Little Rock, Minneapolis, Kansas City, and more. City Hall in Tel Aviv. London bars pausing in their serving and suggesting patrons go outside and hold hands.

While attention has been focused on Orlando, this has gotten little attention: A man planned to attack the Los Angeles Pride Parade with guns and bombs. Thankfully, his plans were thwarted.

I watched the Tony Awards last night, which had a few important mentions of the Orlando attack, especially at the beginning. The show, of course, had performances by the cast of Hamilton, which won several awards. I would not have known that there was something missing from those performances. They dropped the use of muskets.

Melissa McEwen of Shakesville is angry and sad that LGBT people were attacked in what was supposed to be a safe space for them. That prompted an essay in praise of the many LGBT people in her life. She was one of those people who didn't fit in and because she is married and doesn't want children there are many times she still doesn't fit in. Over and over it was people in the LGBT community that befriended her. The recognized a fellow misfit.

That reminds me of my niece. I've heard her say, "My favorite relatives are the gay ones."

If tears come easily, you might want to stop reading now.

I wrote yesterday about the mother searching for her gay son. Alas, the son is among the dead. The family is now planning a joint funeral with the family of the son's boyfriend.

As names of the victims have been released Jim Burroway of Box Turtle Bulletin is posting photos.

Joe Jervis tweeted: "CNN: Investigators forced to 'tune out' sound of ringing phones coming from bodies strewn about scene of massacre."

Front and center

I didn't post yesterday evening because I watched the Tony Awards. Neil Patrick Harris, who is gay, had a rousing opening number "Broadway isn't just for gays anymore." His proof is that the top show (the one that eventually received nine Tony's) is The Book of Mormon and another one in contention was Sister Act about nuns. Harris and his song put gays front and center, not one of those "open secrets."

If you are perhaps interested, this link has several videos, the opening song, Daniel Radcliff (you don't know who he is?) leading the cast of How to Succeed in Business, the big song from The Book of Mormon, and a dueling host song between Hugh Jackman (who hosted the Tony's several times) and Harris. Plus, there is a list of all the winners (if you care).